Diabetes is a chronic disease that, when not controlled, over time leads to serious damage to many of the body's systems, including the nerves, blood vessels, eyes, kidneys and heart. The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) estimates that 23.6 million people or 7.8 percent of the population in the United States had diabetes in 2007. Globally, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that more than 180 million people have diabetes, a number they expect to increase to 366 million by 2030, with 30.3 million in the United States. According to the WHO, an estimated 1.1 million people died from diabetes in 2005. They project that diabetes deaths will increase by more than 50% between 2006 and 2015 overall and by more than 80% in upper-middle income countries.
The economic burden from diabetes for individuals and society as a whole is substantial. According to the American Diabetes Association, the total annual economic cost of diabetes was estimated to be $174 billion in the United States in 2007. This is an increase of $42 billion since 2002. This 32% increase means the dollar amount has risen over $8 billion more each year.
A vital element of diabetes management is the self-monitoring of blood glucose (SMBG) concentration by diabetics in the home environment. By testing blood glucose levels often, diabetics can better manage medication, diet, and exercise to maintain control and prevent the long-term negative health outcomes. In fact, the Diabetes Control and Complications Trial (DCCT), which followed 1,441 diabetics for several years, showed that those following an intensive-control program with multiple blood sugar tests each day as compared with the standard-treatment group had only one-fourth as many people develop diabetic eye disease, half as many develop kidney disease, one-third many develop nerve disease, and far fewer people who already had early forms of these three complications got worse.
However, current monitoring techniques discourage regular use due to the inconvenient and painful nature of drawing blood through the skin prior to analysis, which causes many diabetics to not be as diligent as they should be for good blood glucose control. As a result, non-invasive measurement of glucose concentration is a desirable and beneficial development for the management of diabetes. A non-invasive monitor will make testing multiple times each day pain-free and more palatable for children with diabetes. According to a study published in 2005 (J, Wagner, C. Malchoff, and G. Abbott, Diabetes Technology & Therapeutics, 7(4) 2005, 612-619), people with diabetes would perform SMBG more frequently and have improved quality of life with a non-invasive blood glucose monitoring device.
There exist a number of non-invasive approaches for blood glucose determination. One technique of non-invasive blood chemicals detection involves collecting and analyzing light spectra data.
Extracting information about blood characteristics such as glucose concentration from spectral or other data obtained from spectroscopy is a complex problem due to the presence of components (e.g., skin, fat, muscle, bone, interstitial fluid) other than blood in the area that is being sensed. Such other components can influence these signals in such a way as to alter the reading. In particular, the resulting signal may be much larger in magnitude than the portion of the signal that corresponds to blood, and therefore limits the ability to accurately extract blood characteristics information.